


Inter Alia

by skyline



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, World War Two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 04:49:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4652958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once Howard smiled, broken shards of a grin that almost looked like love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inter Alia

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently this ship is not a thing. Which is strange, because I would have thought it would be a thing. So here I am, making it a thing. Also: I like dogs.

**1944**

_Once_.

Once a girl smiled sly, red wine lips curved with unwavering devotion, with something very akin to love.

It wasn’t at Howard.

He pats Edwin on the shoulder, too much weight in the gesture, and says:

“Go get ‘er, Tiger.”

* * *

**1939**

Army rations taste like shit, even though the British Armed Forces pride themselves in being the crème de la crème of all things military, worldwide. Edwin spits his “dinner” on the ground and wonders why he ever thought to leave home.

“Be less crude, Jarvis,” the General commands, his big jowls and twinkly eyes making him look more like Santa Claus than he has any right to, considering they’re at war, and they’re eating _shit_.

“Sorry, sir,” is what Jarvis replies, though, because manners are right up there next to godliness and cleanliness, according to his mother. Besides, the General’s got a gun and he doesn’t, and Edwin is smart enough to know that his hand to hand isn’t quite up to stopping bullets.

He settles back in the dirt, careful not to lean against the tent’s wall. The General’s got a chair, because he’s a General, and Edwin digs his boots into the dirt and tries not to be resentful. The war is just gearing up, and he knows it’s going to get so much worse than this.

“We’ve got the contractors today,” the old man says, and it’s not a question, but Edwin says an obedient _yes, sir_ anyway, reciting the list of names.

Sign up for the army, they said. Live a world of adventure, they said.

Adventure tastes like stale rations and old man sweat, and more tedium than any office job Edwin ever thought he’d get. He doesn’t wish he was off on a front line somewhere, because he never was quite that brave, but it would be nice if his days didn’t consist of paperwork and the courting of military contractors.

It’s the Americans, today. They aren’t a part of the war.

Sleazy bastards.

He parades them in and out of the General’s tent, like it’s a real office, with four walls and decent tea. None of them are fooled, but all of them are falling over their own feet to get a contract, because they don’t want to bleed on European soil, but they want all the European money they can get their grubby hands on. Edwin has long since already decided contractors are the worst sort of people, the kind who make money off of death without ever investing any kind of risk in it, because if all their fancy war machines fall to pieces, there’s no one left to hold them accountable for it.

The last contractor, though, he’s a bit off. All pizzazz, less desperation. No desperation, actually. This man, Stark, he doesn’t seem to much care whether the General finds him appealing. This largely in part, Edwin thinks, because in this Stark fellow’s estimation, _everyone_ finds him appealing.

There’s something extremely off-putting about that kind of arrogance. Mostly because it’s not arrogance if a person has the talent to back it up, and this man might. He says he’s built and tested every weapon that passes through his company; a ludicrous claim, normally, except that even under all that flash, Edwin can see the oil under Stark’s fingernails.

Howard Stark is the only contractor of the day that comes out with an actual contract, which he accepts with a winning smile and no thanks at all. Edwin walks him and his coterie out of the tent, completely unnerved by how fast he speaks, clearly pleased as punch and hell bent on celebrating. Somewhere in between snapping out orders to a harried looking assistant and he pauses in his jaunty steps, lets out a breath and says, “Say. You. Soldier-man. Do they let your kind drink?”

“They’ve been known to,” Edwin replies, morbidly fascinated with the bustle that surrounds this Mr. Stark, with his slickness, his surety, his slightly greasy American-ness. Everything about him is repellant, but also, new. So new and different from the tedium of record keeping, the monotony of the tent, the grind of this awful war. “Are you inviting me along, or is this a sick tease?”

Stark smiles, a wicked thing. “Better, Jeeves. I’m buying.”

* * *

**1943**

“You’re in trouble. You never get in trouble.”

“Yes, well. I’ve met a woman.”

“The world’s half full of them.”

“You’ve been distracted lately.”

“Lots of things on my plate,” Howard says dismissively, brushing the entire conversation aside. He’s seated at a makeshift drafting table, more entranced by his sketches than anything else. His wicked smile is tucked away, hidden somewhere that Edwin can’t see, and he misses it.

He hasn’t seen Howard smile, a real smile, in quite a bit of time.

“She lives in Budapest.”

“Wonderful place.”

“She’s Jewish.”

That stops Howard’s busy hands, and those dark eyes that Edwin has missed so very often meet his own. “Dangerous choice.”

“I’d like to get her out, if it comes to it.”

“I know a guy,” Howard says immediately, because he knows a lot of guys, and girls, and people. Sometimes Edwin feels like he’s got his hands in every single part of this damn war.

“I had hoped you’d say that.”

Howard shrugs, and the motion makes the papers on his parody of a desk flutter. Edwin can see a round shape, striped at the edges, with a star at its center. It doesn’t look like the design for a bomb, but what does he know? Some of the weapons Howard creates look more like artwork, even off the page.

Death is his legacy, and here’s Edwin, asking him for a life.

“I came here to see you.” Howard says, “Imagine my surprise when they told me you were set to stand trial.”

“You’ve missed a lot.”

“Clearly.” Edwin thinks, for a moment, of Howard’s hands on the rough leather of his belt, his gasped _missed you, soldier._ Howard isn’t thinking of that. Howard is saying, “But I owe you one. Since it’s come to that.”

“It has come to that,” Edwin agrees, and in that moment there’s nothing he wants more than to run his fingers along the sharp jut of Howard’s cheekbone. But they don’t do that anymore. They haven’t for months. “Her name is Anna.”

“Anna,” Howard repeats, face empty of feeling. He’s probably known a lot of Annas in his time. He’s probably wondering if he’s ever known this one, in the biblical sense.

The idea makes Edwin’s heart skip jealously, and not for the right reasons, not because Howard conceivably might have touched the girl he _loves_.

But a lot of people have touched Howard, and if Edwin wasted his time stewing in envy over every single one of them he wouldn’t be much use for anything else. So he tucks the flash of anger away and thinks of this beautiful seamstress in Budapest, who has never made him feel rage or irritation or frustration or hate.

If Howard has put him through every emotion on the spectrum, then Anna has put him through just one. He is doing this for love.

“Jarvis-“ Howard starts, and then stops, his hands moving over his sketches again. Whatever he was going to say has been deemed unimportant as he retreats into himself, hiding away every part of himself that Edwin thought once belonged to him.

Despite himself, Edwin asks, “Are you alright?”

“Quite,” Howard says, huffing out a laugh that sounds jagged and ugly, nothing like the man that Edwin fell too hard and too fast for.

He wonders, sometimes, if Howard fell just as deeply, because…Because, if he did, then Edwin is breaking Howard Stark’s mythical heart.

For _love_ , right?    

* * *

**1940**

The kiss, when it comes, isn’t entirely unexpected.

It tastes of whiskey and Howard, which is a muskier, earthier thing. He’s always so polished, but the dust of the world is on his skin. He presses himself into Edwin, smaller, stockier. His body is warm and welcoming. It’s a hello-kiss, a the-hell-with-it, something Howard springs on him the moment the tent flap closes behind them.

Edwin has seen the way that Howard has looked at him over the course of his last few visits. He thought something like this might come about. But the part that is unexpected is how very much he likes it.

It’s not as though he’s been lying awake at night, dreaming of kissing Howard Stark.

That was very much a mistake he won’t make in the future, because the press of Howard’s mouth is certainly dream-worthy, the soft touch escalating into a slick, dirty slide. He certainly never expected to feel another man’s tongue move with surety against his own, but Howard clearly knows what he’s doing.

“This is okay, right?” Howard pants. “Tell me this is okay.”

“More than satisfactory,” Edwin agrees, too breathless, his voice too thin. “Will it continue?”

Howard kisses him again, insistently rocking their hips together. “Oh yes. Let’s do it as often as possible.”

“Here, here,” Edwin laughs, but the sound is swallowed down Howard’s throat, and then he realizes there are fingers on the buttons of his coat, and it turns into a moan.

“Is it your first time?”

The man is insufferable. He shoves Howard back until his knees are against Edwin’s cot. “Why don’t I show you?”

Howard’s lips curve up, barbed wire and charm. No man has ever been so dangerous or alluring. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

* * *

 

**1941**

“We’re going to war,” Howard tells Edwin, their feet tangled off the edge of the rickety bed that Edwin’s currently calling home. Howard complained that the sheets were too scratchy and the pillows made his skin itch, but when Edwin invited him into the bed’s warmth, he came without complaint. So now they’re here, _naked_ , talking about war.

“I thought as much.”

“Clever boy. I suppose that means I’ll be spending more time here.”

“I suppose you must, given the circumstances,” Edwin agrees, a low hum in the back of his throat as he mouths along Howard’s clavicle. “You Americans will trample all over everything with your very, very big guns.”

“Do me a favor, Jarvis?” Howard asks, stroking Edwin’s hair as his mouth moves over skin.

“Hmm?”

“If it looks like we’re trampling anything, let me know.”

“You won’t be able to tell?”

Howard shrugs then, oddly vulnerable. “The thing about guns and bombs and death is that you get used to it. You get used to it all.”

“I never have.”

“That’s what I find so fascinating about you.”

“The only thing?” Edwin asks, licking at Howard’s neck.

He can feel Howard rumble with laughter. “No. Not the only thing.”

* * *

**1942**

Howard’s busy, it seems. All the time. Too busy for whiskey or picnics or stories.

There’s a rumor in the air that the Americans are working on a secret weapon, and Edwin wouldn’t be surprised if Howard had his hands right in the midst of it, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss his visits.

He misses them, and misses them, and one day he looks at the calendar and realizes; it’s been a full year since the last time he saw Howard’s face in person. A full year without Howard’s laugh and Howard’s touch and Howard’s kisses.

A full year, and Edwin still doesn’t know how to let go.

* * *

 

**1945**

 “You left _me_ , Howard. You left me for your engines and guns and your weapons, for your projects-”

“I know that, and-“

“I have Anna now.”

“I saved her for you-“

 “Keep your hands off of me.”

“You don’t understand, Jarvis, you think I ever wanted to be away from you? Have you seen-“

“The news? I’ve heard the news. Tell me that wasn’t your handiwork.”

“It isn’t my work.” Howard swallows, stills, and allows, “Anymore.”

“The bombs. All those people.”

“I know.”

“Of course you knew. You’re a genius. You always know, and you always do it anyway.”

“They weren’t supposed to be used. They were…they were a-“ Howard flounders, and it’s that more than anything that gets Edwin’s attention. He’s never at a loss for words, not ever.

“Howard-“ Edwin takes a step towards him, raising his hand in a caress he won’t ever be able to complete.

Howard makes a noise in the back of his throat, more hurt than Edwin has ever seen him. His dark eyes watch Edwin’s hand like he’s expecting a slap. “You make killing machines, they’re sure to kill people, right?”

Edwin thinks of all the times he slept, wrapped up in Howard’s arms. Howard threw that away, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean he can’t respect the past. “What would you like me to do?”

“Be my conscience, Jarvis.” Howard’s dark, steady eyes watch him in a way that Edwin hasn’t seen for years. “Work for me, and make sure it never happens again.” 

* * *

**1942**

The nights when Howard isn’t there are cold, lonely, impossibly hard. They blur together into a constant stream of questions and hurt, until Edwin knows he has to stop thinking about it or go insane.

He runs into Anna in the last wintery days of December.

He meets her after an entire year of loneliness, and for the first time in a long time, feels his heart skip a beat.            

* * *

 

**1941**

They meet in secret, whenever they can. Whenever Howard’s schedule allows, and Edwin isn’t caught up in the thrall of this Great War. He’s never been quite sure what’s so great about men dying, everywhere, all across the land, but that’s what they call it, sometimes. The second Great War.

“You’re too romantic,” Howard tells him, running his fingers across Edwin’s bare chest. He’s been with others, Edwin knows, and he has too, but somehow he suspects that Howard doesn’t do this with them. He doesn’t lie in bed and talk about the causes and ramifications of death.

No one but a solider would think that was suitable pillow talk.

“How so?”

“You don’t want to die, and you don’t want to kill, but you wear that uniform anyway.” Howard gestures to the pile of clothes lumped on the floor of Edwin’s tent. He has one of those today, because he’s an officer, and he serves an officer, and for all the drudgery of fighting, England still respects the brass.

As long as it’s every Tuesday or Thursday and the General’s off to town, unable to sleep in it for the night.

“I didn’t volunteer.”

“You wear it with dignity,” Howard retorts, kissing Edwin’s pectoral muscle, nipping because he never can stop himself from upping the game. “You’ve got honor.”

“You’re assuming too much of me, Howard.”

“You assume too little of yourself. I-“ For a moment, Edwin wonders if Howard is about to spill it all on the ground, a grand confession of love. That’s the Howard Stark he reads about in the newspapers, still dancing with dames in the middle of European shambles. The grandest of romantics.

Except that’s not the Howard he’s come to know. This version is guarded, less a jester and not even close to a fool. He risks his grandeur on those who won’t notice it’s an act, and Edwin isn’t stupid.

Howard covers the slip, whatever he was going to say, and settles for, “I wish that you saw what I saw, Jarvis.”

He knows it means everything in the world when Howard watches him with something so close to adoration that it can’t be anything other than love. He knows all the visits and the gifts and the way that Howard speaks to him aren’t things anyone else has access to.

But he also knows that they aren’t exactly enough. When the war ends, Edwin wants a family. He wants a house and a fence and maybe a dog.

Dogs are filthy. Scratch the dog.

Howard will never give him that. Even if it was possible out there, in the bigoted, awful world, Howard Stark is not the kind of man who will ever have a house or a fence or a pet of any kind. He will share his secrets here, in the General’s tent, when he and Edwin are entwined so tightly that it’s impossible to tell where either of them begin.

But that doesn’t mean that they exist outside.

Out there, in the world, Edwin knows they never will actually exist.

* * *

**1940**

The nights when Howard comes to see him are vibrant color and booming sound, filled with Howard’s constant babble and fast-talk and deceivingly honest moments peppered amidst them.

“Missed you, solider,” he gasps against Edwin’s mouth, fumbling with the buckle of his belt.

Edwin doesn’t know how to say he’s missed Howard too, does not know how to make himself vulnerable to this man who is still a little bit of a stranger, but becoming something more. So instead he asks, “What does this mean, precisely?”

Howard stops with the kissing, which is more disappointing than Edwin will ever admit. “It means I want to kiss you.”

“That suits me. I want to kiss you too,” Edwin replies amiably. And then he does just that.

They don’t need to talk about what they are. Not really. This is an amusement, nothing deeper.

How deep can two men in the middle of a war possibly go?

* * *

**1943**

They existed between Howard’s adventures, to be sure; his life abroad and the mechanics of war.

They existed because, among other things, they needed each other at a time when there was no one else. And Edwin wonders now that they don’t exist anymore whether Howard will ever replace him, or if he’ll just stumble around the way he always has, convinced the world owes him more than it can give.

At night, he worries; who will love Howard Stark in his absence?

In the day, he remembers; this man has enchanted the world. He’ll be fine.

Edwin hopes he’ll be fine.

* * *

 

**1939**

 “You know Jeeves,” Mr. Stark chortles, jabbing him in the chest, “I think you and I are going to be friends.”

“Oh, do you?” Edwin asks indifferently, because if he needed a friend who was a champion at beer-guzzling and chasing skirts, he’d certainly have his pick of the litter.

If that sort didn’t find him stiff and boring, anyway.

“Yessir. You and I-“ Stark burps, and if that isn’t the most offensive thing he’s done all night, Edwin would prefer not to think of it. No one else in the dirty, rundown tavern seems to mind. “You and I are gonna be great friends.”

“Pardon my disbelief.”

“I’ll grow on you.”

“Fungus often does.”

A laugh startles out of Stark’s throat, surprise and delight entwined into one vibrant, beautiful thing. It’s the first kind thought Edwin’s had about the man; that he has a nice laugh. Very nice indeed.

“You give as good as you get, don’tcha, Mr…” Mr. Stark squints, his dark eyes flickering more shrewdly than Edwin would have thought possible, given his general state of drunkenness. “Jarvis, isn’t it?”

“Indeed.”

“Indeed.” Stark laughs again, and despite himself, Edwin is gratified that someone finds his company pleasant. There among the taxidermied boars’ heads and filth coated wooden tables, laden with soldier’s pints, he feels, for the first time, that enlisting might not have been the _worst_ idea he’d ever had. “How about another drink?”

It sounds like Stark’s asking how he feels about adventure.

Edwin says, “I suppose I could be convinced.”

“You suppose you-“ Mr. Stark shakes his head, marveling. “You’re a treasure, Jarvis. The crown should be proud.”

“They often sing my praises.”

“I can imagine.” Eyes sparkling, Stark flags down the barkeep. “One for me, my man, and two for Lieutenant Prissy-Pants over here. He’s got a monarchy to make proud.”

Edwin opens his mouth to shoot the insult down, but then he realizes Stark’s laughing again, and that, perhaps, might not be so bad.

* * *

**1944**

 Once.

 Once Howard smiled, broken shards of a grin that almost looked like love.

He gestures to the girl, seated on a café stool in Budapest, because she is pretty, but not so pretty as this broken man he has fought beside and loved with and has no choice but to let go. Howard's fingers bite into Edwin’s shoulder, trying too hard to be something they aren’t, to imitate the friends they never can be.

He says, “Go get ‘er, Tiger.”

Edwin goes.

 

 

 


End file.
